It’s For the Environment

The Bath family has been a one-car family longer than they have been known as the Baths. It hasn’t been difficult. What was difficult was having two cars and needing to drive additional, pointless trips so that both vehicles had a chance to be driven at least once per month and avoid getting their (starter) batteries completely discharged. Each additional car requires expensive semi-annual maintenance even if nothing goes wrong. And if you don’t drive a car for an extended period, expensive things seem to happen to the brakes. Even if you don’t use the car much, you’re still supposed to get an oil change every six months, which means dumping five quarts of perfectly good, clean, refined, and toxic oil and replacing it with five more quarts identical to what was thrown away.

So, I’m glad we sold our second car. I wish I had sold it four or even six years earlier than I did given how little it was used.

Our situation on this front hasn’t changed much even though our daughter has started preschool and I got a (non-teaching) job at my wife’s university. We still don’t need a second car.

What we do need is a parking spot.

For a variety of complicated but boring reasons, the logistics of getting two adults to work and one toddler to preschool involve my driving to work in the morning a couple mornings per week and my wife driving the car back immediately after lunch. It’d be nice to have someplace to park the car over that half-day.

The wait list for a parking spot, however, is five years. This is for a permit that costs a good bit more than $1000 per year.

But there’s a way to go immediately to the front of the line! If two university employees agree to carpool, then they bypass the line and get a parking spot immediately instead of sometime next decade. What’s more, the parking permit is heavily discounted from its regular price.

And the parking office even volunteered to me that if my wife works for the university, the two of us could carpool together. All we have to do is sign up together with up-to-date registration for both of our cars…

I asked if it was necessary to have two cars to qualify, and it is. The policy is meant to help the environment by encouraging carpooling. If they handed us a permit, they wouldn’t get credit for taking an extra car off the road since we don’t own an extra car.

So, to get a parking spot, I would need to buy a car so that it can be not driven to work.

These are perverse incentives, but they aren’t unusual for the society we have running here. See this Consumer Reports video:

If you didn’t catch it, the world’s most efficient woman clambers into a 6,000-pound SUV to transport her own 145-pound person. But it’s a hybrid!

In 2016, environmental virtue is in buying shiny new solar panels, not in reducing consumption. The most highly subsidized car in America is a $100,000 sports car, and it got that way thanks to the efforts of a political party whose rallying cry is income inequality. The Consumer Reports video is the least problematic of any of this. There is something to be said for not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, but we’ve taken that to mean exalting the bad over the terrible.

A woman who works from home isn’t reasonable for most people. No one wants to subsidize her or make a video about her life. Even a walk-to-work woman fails the reasonability test because what are you going to do when the weather is slightly uncomfortable? Move?

Such restrictions make dramatic change impossible. The most efficient woman can be no more than 20% more efficient than the average woman. Consume different if you must, but the first order is to consume.

Share this:

Vikram Bath is the pseudonym of a former business school professor living in the United States with his wife, daughter, and dog. (Dog pictured.) His current interests include amateur philosophy of science, business, and economics. Tweet at him at @vikrambath1.

1) Q: How long do you have to own the second car? Do you have to renew the permit periodically with 2 legally registered cars? A: “Buy” a non-running car, register it, then sell or give it back to the junkyard you bought it from. (You should be able to get a running POS for $50-$100.)

2) Q: There has to be a car registered in each of your name’s, right? A: find a good friend who will temporarily transfer registration, then transfer it back after you get your parking pass.

3) Q: Got any friends at the University who already have a parking pass who have a second car registered to them? A: “Carpool” with their second car.

(1) I just need to have the registration with my name on it. I don’t think I’d have to renew it. The POS option has occurred to me. I’m not sure I can find a running one for under $100 though. My state does vehicle inspections, which tends to cap the number of older cars on the road.

(2) This has occurred to me too! I’ll have to research this some more. Do I have a good-enough friend for this? I think I’d have to transfer the title too, in which case there would be sales tax to be paid. And I don’t think I can just buy and sell the car for $1 without it raising flags with the state

(3) This would be my preferred option, but I can’t think of any candidates. ——— .Overall, I’m leaning towards some version of #1. Some sort of cheap thing, though it might be a few thousand.Report

This post is in danger of getting JonRowed! Are you claiming that the University policy is inconsistent with the stated goals (so it’s bad policy)?, or that “environmentalism” is incoherent since it doesn’t refudiate consumption?

I don’t think it is ridiculous. You and your wife aren’t really “carpooling” and giving you a spot doesn’t encourage the behavior that the school seeks to encourage. I understand why that might be frustrating but I’m not sure we can say it creates perverse incentives when very few people will be incentivized to do what you considered doing.Report

No, they are carpooling, the definition does not really require that the people in a carpool be from different households.

The problem with the incentive is that its specificity undermines its efficacy toward the larger goal.

The stated goal is to encourage people to put fewer cars on the road. The specific requirement is that a car is taken off the road as a result of the incentive, but how is it furthering the larger goal of removing a car if it penalizes people who removed said car prior to needing a parking permit.

If a bar was offering free soda to any designated driver, but only if that person committed to being a designated driver when they walked in the bar, because of the free sodas, would you not wonder if they were pouring themselves just a few too many shots of the Green Fairy?

All either policy does is encourage people to find a way to game the incentive (see gingergene’s comment above).Report

The college’s position is such that it sees two people driving in two separate cars and parking in two separate spots (or searching for two spots because neither has a permit) and says, “Hey, if you guys drive together in one car and leave the other car, we’ve reduced the number of cars on the road and the number of cars needing parking. That is a good thing.”

If the college gives Vikram and his wife a carpool permit… nothing will have changed. Save for having one fewer permit to give out that actually achieves their desired outcome.

Yes, you could argue that the university is “penalizing” the Baths for taking a separate action that achieves a similar result to the one they seek previously.

Also, it isn’t clear to me if the college’s real goal is environmental or traffic reduction. If it is the latter, than I think Vikram has even less space from which to argue.Report

Imagine the university has 300 cars and 100 parking spots. There aren’t enough spots for everyone and the imbalance causes all sorts of traffic woes. The university says, “Hey, if we give priority to carpoolers, there will be fewer cars coming to campus! Huzzah!”

So if Vikram and his neighbor, Joe, agree to carpool and get a pass, there are now 298 cars for 99 spots. That is an improvement!

If Vikram and his wife “carpool” and get a pass, there are now 299 cars for 99 spots. That is worse!Report

The policy is meant to help the environment by encouraging carpooling.

Assuming Vikram is not misquoting the parking office, then the policy is not about limited spaces, but about the environment (bet that $1000 fee is going to do a fine job of handling the scarcity problem). If that is their actual motivation, then the goal of the policy is less about the environment and more about the school being able to say, “Hey, this policy has removed X many cars from the road during the morning commute. Look how awesome we are.”Report

300 cars driving to university (one full of Baths!) and 100 spots to dangle to provide incentive. Give one to the Baths and you still have 300 cars driving to university and now only 99 spots to dangle. Give one to the Smiths and Jones and you now have 299 cars driving to the university and 99 spots to dangle.

The result doesn’t change: giving a spot to the Baths in their current situation doesn’t reduce the number of cars on the road because the Baths already reduced the number of cars they personally put on the road. Giving them a spot would change an incentive to change behavior into a reward for existing behavior. Those aren’t identical. And while they arguably deserve greater reward because their change in behavior has likely yielded greater longterm impact, that happened outside the university’s system.

Again, giving the Baths a spot does not reduce the number of cars on the road. So why do it?Report

Because there is an ongoing incentive for the Bath’s to get a second car to alleviate the issues they are facing.

Preventing the birth of a new car in the Bath family may actually be better than carpooling.

Interestingly, this is always the case in business decisions… the avoidance of a cost or negative effect is always and everywhere discounted to almost zero. If you try to build your case on avoidance, my experience has shown that your case will almost never be accepted up-chain. But, incur the cost and then remove it… now that’s some smart work that is.Report

Like in Flint, where it now looks like there may be state money available to replace the old, leaching lead water pipes, but only after there are lawsuits for poisoning people that can be avoided in the future.Report

A fair point, but the Baths are in an atypical situation and the rule was not really intended for them. In fact, I’m surprised they would allow it to apply to a married couple. So, yes, the law provides perverse incentives but ONLY in situations like the Baths — which may be one-of-a-kind — and they are also perverse if we believe that the university’s sole intention is environmental. If, as I suspect, they are equally if not more concerned with logistics and traffic flow and the like, the no such perverse incentive exists.Report

@kazzy I wouldn’t say that the Bath situation is really unusual. The triggering factors are 2 employees and 1 parking space. When you break it down, that’s the trade the university is asking people to make.

It sounds though as if the school is not going about it the best way. Rather than allocating just a few “special” spots, they should annually make every eligible employee apply for a spot and weight the apportionment and location according to your score. That score could be made-up of any combination/weight of things important to the school: Type of vehicle? # of employees joining application for single space? Length of Service? Tenure? Solar panels at home? Anything the institution might want to score to allocate this resource in accordance with behavior it wants to promote.

Now, my suspicion, should this ever happen, is that all the prime locations would be allocated to top administrators, deans, and tenured faculty regardless of environmental factors… but either way, it would reflect what the school actually values.Report

The thing is… the Baths aren’t making a trade. They voluntarily elected to be in that position absent incentive from the university. The university wants to incentivize people to change their behavior. The Baths already changed it! The university gains nothing from giving them a spot.

It isn’t the best thing in the world, but I don’t think it is the travesty or perverse incentive some folks are making it out.

And I say that as someone who generally likes Mr. Bath and would rather see things work out in his favor!Report

In many ways, this is no different than when, as a longtime subscriber, I would notice “special introductory offers” to the magazines I used to take that I wasn’t eligible for, since I was already a subscriber. Irritating as hell, but not really unfair.

You know, just the other day, Josh Marshall posted a piece about the demise of Al Jazeera America, where he wondered at their strategy for taking over the market by doing lots of hard-hitting pieces on poverty. Somehow your piece reminds me of that. There are other people out there who make the sorts of choices that you advocate, they are just really quiet about it. I think most people in media don’t want to come off as accusatory or preachy.

And speaking of the Model S, the plan is to take the revenue and push the price points of subsequent models lower. You knew that, right? “Show me” is a completely legitimate attitude, though.Report

You live someplace where recycling used motor oil isn’t mandatory? I didn’t know there were any such places left. My 7.5-year-old Honda Fit monitors all sorts of things and puts up a warning icon when the software decides it’s time for an oil change — for me, every nine or ten months. A chemical engineering friend tells me that the base oil may be okay, but that there’s a lot of fancy goop mixed in today’s lubricants that break down sooner.

I’m not sure about the absurdity of the requirement. The university may be trying to encourage one specific behavior — two people drive to campus in one car in the morning and leave in one car in the evening. My experience is years old, but none of the carpooling programs I was eligible for ever matched up well to the needs of small children.Report

This reminds me of a former employer’s “incentives” to take mass transit or car pool. Those incentives were provided by various local gov’ts because of the heavy traffic in the area. Discounts for mass transit, “bike days”, squeezing employees to pay for ever more parking, etc.

I asked, “why should I drive 45 mins to a mass transit stop to get onto transit and travel another 20 miles over the next hour when I can drive to work in 60 mins, not to mention having to pay for parking and transit”?Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

Ten Second News

Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

Comment →

From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

Featured Comment

Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.